obsessions, anxieties, and other little things that make my world go 'round

August 07, 2014

Journal Day 6: Perfect

“Ring the bells that still can ring; Forget your perfect offering; There is a crack in everything; That's how the light gets in.” - Leonard Cohen

This. The pursuit of perfection - the belief in its possibility - definitely stops me from writing, from sharing, from committing. Wanting things to be perfect. My version of best. Words. Schedules. Experiences. Conversations. Relationships. The raising of the children. All just so. To this end, I do a lot of preparing, a lot of research, a lot of evaluation and analysis. Spreadsheets. The reason I can't stop is that many times I actually achieve my version of perfection so it reinforces the behavior. Things like Amazon reviews are drugs to me.

While I claim to not believe there is one right way to do things, I often believe there's a best way, and surprisingly, that way is often the path I try to take. There is fear wrapped up in "not good enough" and "not the best." Fear of catastrophe, sadness, disappointment. Mine. My family's. But really mostly mine.

I've made some two steps forward one step back progress over the years and parenting alone kind of smacked me in the face with good enough - but probably not as hard as it should have.

This journal project is part of my attempt to move beyond the need for perfection. Fake it til I make it. Though it's killing me right now that the photo won't post perfectly in this post. If only I could believe what I want to believe. That would be perfect.